During the 2008 Presidential Election,  John McCain proposed a pragmatic national energy policy based upon good stewardship, good science, and reasonableness. George Will attacked his proposal, claiming that “global temperatures have not risen in a decade”. He claimed the hottest year on record was 1998 and no year since has been hotter. His argument was simple, easily understood, and very wrong. While 1998 was an unusually hot year, NASA’s data shows that 2005 was warmer.

• George Will’s claim resonated with those who wish to deny that the Earth is warming, so they extended the statement to “the Earth hasn’t warmed in 12 years”, 15 years, and finally 17 years – so far. Apparently truthfulness is not a criteria, as 2005, 2010, 2014, were warmer than 1998. Now they claim the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has confirmed their deception. That’s not right, either.
• The IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report  concluded that the global surface temperature “has shown a much smaller increasing linear trend over the past 15 years [1998-2012] than over the past 30 to 60 years.” The apparent slowdown was termed a “hiatus” and cheered by the Skeptics, although a “smaller increasing linear trend” is not a hiatus. The apparent slowdown intrigued the climate scientists, who immediately set about trying to discover where the energy went.
• Scientist knew the energy had to go somewhere  because of the First Law of Thermodynamics, which says that energy is conserved. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was  still rising and, because of the greenhouse effect, the Earth was still absorbing more energy that it emitted. According to the conservation of energy, that extra energy has to go somewhere in the environment, and whether it warms the air, the land,  the oceans, melts ice, or evaporates water – the Earth was storing the energy somewhere. Claiming that “global warming has paused”, is badly misleading as the amount of energy in the Earth’s systems was still increasing. To claim a pause is to claim that the Law of Conservation of Energy is invalid. And, that is an extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary proof. No Skeptic was up to that task.
• What followed was a flurry of research by climate scientists,  trying to figure out where the energy had gone. It turned out that it really hadn’t gone  anywhere, because the missing heat has been there all along. It was an artifact from how the ocean temperatures were measured.
• According to a recent NBC news report,”Global warming has not stopped or even slowed in the past 18 years, according to a new federal study that rebuts doubters who’ve claimed that that heating trends have paused. Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration readjusted thousands of weather data points to account for different measuring techniques through the decades.”
• Tom Karl, director of the National Centers for Environmental Information,  is the lead author of the  study published in the journal Science. He explained the discrepancy came from a change in how ocean temperatures were measured. “Global ocean temperatures are estimated both by thousands of commercial ships, which record the temperature of the water entering their engines and by thousands of buoys. The buoys tend to get cooler temperature readings than the ships, likely because ships’ engines warm the water. Meanwhile, in recent years, buoys have become increasingly common.”  The result, Karl says, is that the oceans did not appearing to be warming as much because more buoys are now being used instead of ships. So Karl’s team adjusted the buoy data to make them line up with the ship data. The corrected data,  in the graph below, shows that since 1998, the rate of warming is about the same as it has been since 1950: about two-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit per decade.

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The Skeptics, of course, were not happy that the missing heat had been discovered and their ” hiatus” was exposed as a myth. So, they have now gone back to their familiar theme, that “scientists adjust the data to get what they want.” Saying that is certainly easier than disproving The First Law of Thermodynamics.

(C) 2015 – J.C. Moore

This was taken from Apollo 11 as the Earth rose over the disc of the Moon.

2015x-(3) The-Science-of-Climate-Change with notes

Please click on the link above. You will need a PowerPoint program to view the slides – or you may  download a free viewer here. The slides will display as set in your viewer. Explanations of the slides are in the notes section.

If you have a website, or post comments on blog sites or newspaper articles, you have likely run into trolls. Trolls are the bane of the Internet as their main goals  are to shut down reasonable discussions or spread misinformation. Free from editors or peer review trolls can, and do, distort information for ideological reasons or because they are paid. Then, there are trolls who do it just for fun.

Paid trolls are often called “sock puppets” as their message is controlled by those who create them.  Paid trolls are often given a target site, a set of talking points, and a program which allows them to set up a number of fake identities for additional sock puppets, to make it appear that many support their arguments . Sock puppets do not follow the rules of debate and are often uncivil, using personal attacks in an attempt to shut down reasonable discussion. Research shows that sock puppets, and even unpaid trolls, often enjoy what they do because of negative personality characteristics.

Trolls: A  personality study correlated the activities enjoyed by Internet users with personality traits. The study  explored whether Internet trolls’ behavior fell into the Dark Tetrad: Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive others), narcissism (egotism and self-obsession), psychopathy (the lack of remorse and empathy), and sadism (pleasure in the suffering of others). The chart below shows the results.

The framework for nuclear deal with Iran has now been approved with the details to be worked out later.

In Our Hands

Eventually the Senate will be called upon to ratify the final treaty, and it is important that we begin building support for the treaty in Congress. A war between Iran and Israel would destabilize the Middle East further and lead to unthinkable war and terrorism. Please write your Senator, and also your Representative as well,  to ask for their support. Below is a letter that I sent to my Legislators, which you may use for ideas. I am sure there will be several petitions circulating about this, but sometimes a personal letter carries more weight.

The US had many Iranian students and friends back in the 60s and 70s who thought America was great. When the Revolution started, many of them returned home to protect their families. Iran has been under the control of extremists for over 30 years and the moderates have just recently been able to elect a president who wishes to improve relationships with United States and remove the sanctions on their country. If we think we have trouble in the Middle East now, imagine how it would be if a war started between Israel and Iran, and the radicals seize power again.

While the negotiated agreement may not be all we would wish, we should give it a chance. Under the framework, Iran would give up two-thirds of its centrifuges used to enrich uranium and would reduce its stockpile of low-enriched uranium from 10,000 kilograms to 300 kilograms. These two things alone would diminish Tehran’s ability to produce a nuclear weapon. Its nuclear apparatus would be smaller, and under these guidelines, Iran’s pathway to nuclear weapons, while certainly not impossible, would be much more difficult.

Iran would convert its underground nuclear reactor, which could produce weapons grade plutonium, to one which could not and would be used primarily for research purposes. The agreement contains inspection and verification to see that Iran complies fully.

Please support the agreement. It is not just a treaty with United States, but with six other countries and the European Union. Our failure to approve it would cause trouble with our allies, who are anxious to put an end to this crisis, and could lead to a devastating war in the Middle East.

Note added on 1/06/2016: Most people don’t realize how close we came to a catastrophic war between Israel and Iran over Iran’s nuclear program.  As agreed in the nuclear treaty,  Iran recently shipped its stockpile of over 25,000 pounds of low-enriched uranium materials to Russia, ensuring that Iran’s nuclear program will be peaceful going forward.

(c) 2015 – J.C. Moore

This is a guest post by Barbara Moore.

Hearing that voting was not a Constitutional right and that it is not mentioned in the United States Constitution made me feel kind of disillusioned. Wait a minute, as a woman I am well aware of the hard won right for women to vote. I know this is protected in the 19^th Amendment of the United States Constitution.

The 19^th Amendment plainly states, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged…” The RIGHT of citizens of the United States to vote should be clear enough as it is used here – for even those who say that the right to vote is not in the Constitution. But, if that is not enough, the right to voteis also mentioned four other times in the Constitution. As well as the 19^th, it is mentioned in the 15^th, 24^th and 26^th Amendments to the Constitution. Each time it plainly states the right of citizens of the Unites States to vote….

I do not think any other right is mentioned five times in the Constitution as is the case with the right to vote. It should be clear  that the Constitution of the United States plainly states that is a right of citizens of the United States and makes clear that it is also a protected right which, “shall not be abridged or denied.”

Unfortunately,the need for the four special Amendments has been due to the injustice of political manipulation. Perhaps, sadly, even with these protections of the right to vote, we have not seen the end of political attempts at the manipulation of citizens’ right to vote.

Here is a link to a very good article by Garrett Epps who teaches Constitutional Law.

(C) 2015  Barbara Moore

The picture at the right was taken from the Apollo spacecraft as the Earth rose above the horizon of the moon. It reminds us of how beautiful the Earth is, how small and finite it is in the universe, and how important it is that we protect it. This contest was designed to identify those who work to protect the Earth and those who would damage it through their actions. The 2014 Environmental Hall of Fame/Shame contest was carried out on four websites and the votes were combined to determine those who have most affected the environment.

1. Pope Francis (55%) – for his Protect Creation efforts. He is preparing a comprehensive Vatican teachings on climate change, which will urge 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide to take action. He  also plans to convene a summit of the world’s main religions in hopes of bolstering next year’s crucial U.N. climate meeting in Paris. Hoped for Reward: A strong agreement from the climate conference.

2.  John Holdren (18%) –  a lauded theoretical physicist who is President Obama’s science adviser. He has been a strong influence on the Administration’s science policy and has been quite effective in shutting down Congressmen who deny the human influence on climate.  Prize : Election defeats  for all Congressmen who exclaim, “I’m not a scientist, but…” .

3. Boyen Slat ( 15%) – a 19 year old Dutch student/ inventor and founder and CEO of The OCEANCLEANUP . He developed a method for removing much of the 30 million tons of plastic entering the oceans annually, convincing 70 scientist to help, producing a 530 page feasibility study, and raising over 2 million dollars to start the project. Prize : A high price for recyclable plastic.

4.  Physicist John Cook ( 12%) for creating the Skeptical Science site in 2007 which conveniently catalogues all paid denier memes/propaganda and the scientific responses to them. He has posted a large number of articles and videos explaining the facts of climate science.  Prize: Ownership of WWUT, the major denier site.

The 2014 Environmental Hall of Shame Winners:

1.  Freedom Industries and its ex-CEO  Gary Southern (43%) – for contaminating the drinking water for 300,000 West Virginians. They have been charged with multiple violation of the Clean Water Act related to polluting West Virginia’s Elk River, including a massive chemical spill this past January that saw 10,000 gallons of a coal-cleaning chemical called crude MCHM dumped into the river. Award: A prison cell with drinking water from the Elk River.

2. Senator James Inhofe (31%) who claims “climate change is the biggest hoax in history”. He has compared the United States Environmental Protection Agency to a Gestapo bureaucracy, EPA Administrator Carol Browner to Tokyo Rose, and now he’s chairman of the Senate Science Committee. Award:  A path for the KXL pipeline through his backyard.

3. Tony Abbot (19%) – Australian Prime Minister who led the repeal of the carbon tax, even though Australia is one of the world’s largest polluters per capita and is facing serious changes to climate and weather systems as a result of global warming. The Guardian described it as “an act of gross moral negligence to the future prosperity of this country and future generations.”  Award: A million lumps of coal for next Christmas, delivered to his front yard.

4. Dr. Richard S. Lindzen (7%)  – Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute who  described the recent U.S. Senate climate vote as a bizarre and ludicrous “attempt to hijack science for political purposes”. The Cato Institute is a part of the Climate Change Denial Machine, and the “focus his work is on the interaction between climate science and policymakers”. Once a fine scientist, denial for political purposes is now Dr. Lindzen’s job and he knows enough to sound impressive as he disputes accepted science. Prize: A trophy engraved “Outstanding Climate Science Hypocrite Award”.

It is important that we keep in mind those who have the greatest impact, for good or ill, on the environment. I wish to thank those who provided the nominations, the prize suggestions, the insightful and humorous comments, and the votes to determine the winners. As this year goes by, please take note of those you wish to nominate for the 2015 awards.

(c) 2015  – J.C. Moore